Lukaku, Rashford send Manchester United into last 16

MANCHESTER, December 6: Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford scored as Manchester United defeated CSKA Moscow 2-1 on Tuesday to reach the Champions League knockout rounds for the first time since 2013-14.

A contentious goal awarded to Vitinho gave CSKA a shock lead on half-time, but Lukaku and Rashford struck twice in two second-half minutes to send Jose Mourinho's side into the last 16 as Group A winners.

"I'm really happy because we don't want to qualify with a defeat, we don't want to qualify with a bad performance," said Mourinho. "So the objective was to qualify playing well and try to get a positive result. I think we did that very, very well."

In avoiding defeat, United extended their run of unbeaten home games to 40 in all competitions, their last loss on home turf being a 2-1 defeat by City in September last year.

With Basel qualifying by winning 2-0 away to Benfica in the other group game, CSKA had to content themselves with a place in the knockout phase of the Europa League.

Mourinho made six changes to the team that had beaten Arsenal, handing a rare start to forgotten left-back Luke Shaw, and the low-key feel was only exacerbated when the Champions League music failed to play prior to kick-off. (AFP)